Royal Seducer / Bossman Billionaire: Royal Seducer

He took her hand in his and asked, “Your room or mine?”

Chris found them a deck of cards, and they decided on his room to play. Unlike the full suites at the palace on Morgan Isle, Chris’s room consisted of only a bedroom and full bath, but both were spacious and modern, decorated in a masculine theme of blues and grays, with a splash of red here and there, and dark cherrywood furnishings. The room was dim, lit only by a lamp beside the bed, and smelled of his aftershave. She couldn’t help but think how well it suited his personality.

He shut the door and locked it, which sent a little shiver of excitement up her spine. He gestured to the king-size—or in his case, would that be prince-size?—bed. “Shall we sit?”

They sat across from each other, she by the headboard and he by the foot. His inexperience with the game showed. He kicked off his shoes before he sat. Knowing better, she left hers on, not that she thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell of beating her. Hardly a night passed when she didn’t play poker on her computer. It helped her relax after a long, stressful day.

It would be a nice change to play with a real person. She’d tried to get games going with her half siblings, but they were always too busy with their children or their spouses.

“How about five-card draw?” she asked. “Nothing wild.”

“Sounds simple enough. Although you may need to give me a few hands to brush up on the rules.”

Oh, this was going to be too easy.

She smiled sweetly and said, “Why, of course I will.” She took the cards out of the pack, fished out the jokers, and shuffled. “Oh, one more thing. Rules are, we don’t stop until someone loses.”

“In other words, someone has to be naked.”

She nodded.

He shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Oh, yeah, way too easy.

They played a few practice hands so he could get the hang of it, and of course he lost miserably. “We could practice awhile longer,” she offered, but he shook his head.

“I think I’ve got the gist of it,” he said.

She didn’t want this to go too quickly, so she suggested, “Best two out of three hands takes off one article of clothing. Fair?”

“Fine with me,” he said. He obviously had no idea what he was getting himself into. Or maybe he just didn’t care if he lost. Her philosophy was that if you were going to play, play to win. And she would.

She dealt the first hand, and though Chris still seemed a bit fuzzy on the rules, his defeat wasn’t quite as bad this time. Three sixes to her straight. Unfortunately he lost the next hand, too. A pair of queens to her aces and tens.

“Let’s have it,” she said. “One item of clothing.”

He sighed and peeled off one sock. He had nice-looking feet. Almost…elegant.

They started the second round. She took the first hand with a flush, but he came back strong with three kings to her measly pair of jacks. Despite that, she rounded out the match with a full house, which beat his two pair.

She gestured to his other foot. “Take it off.”